In Six Sigma our goal is to continuously improve our ability to deliver defect free products and services that meet customer requirements. Doing so results in higher levels of customer satisfaction and lowers the cost of operations. In the course of a typical improvement project we define a problem, collect data about the nature […]

Statistical process control charts, aka Shewhart control charts, are introduced in our Green Belt course. At the Black Belt level, students are tasked to develop control charts for the primary Y variable that is to be the focus of improvement during the Define phase of their Black Belt project. Before we can rely on the […]

Data that follow a distribution that is either not symmetric or that is symmetric but not bell shaped are said to be non-normal. A common misconception among students is that all data should be normally distributed, and that there is something inherently wrong if their data is not normally distributed. In fact, data is not […]

Black Belt students are exposed to Design of Experiments (DOE) in their classroom training, but in my experience very few of them actually apply the technique while completing a project to earn their Black Belt certificate. One of my students recently completed a project that made excellent use of a Designed Experiment, and his company […]